AP Photo

By marking the Cold War's end and the looming collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago transformed global geopolitics. But no continent benefited more than Asia, whose dramatic economic rise since 1989 has occurred at a speed and scale without parallel in world history.

For Asia, the most important consequence of the fall of the Berlin Wall was that the collapse of communism produced a shift from the primacy of military power to economic power in shaping the international order. To be sure, rapid economic growth also occurred during the Industrial Revolution and in the post-World War II period. But in the post-Cold War period, economic growth by itself has contributed to altering global power relations.

Receive email...